maryland. congressional leaders will a.m. in a ceremony at 11: saturday at 9:00 a.m. eastern, cindy mccain will be honoring her husband's military service. at the memorial will include george w. bush and barack obama. c-span's "washington journal,"'s live every day. coming up thursday morning, former trump speech writer will discuss his new book. also, offshore and former bernie -- also author and

former bernie sanders campaign manager. be sure to watch at washington journal on thursday morning. join the discussion. president trump answered reporters questions today on a variety of issues including the parting white house counsel don mcgann, trade negotiations with canada, and puerto rico's continuing efforts. this came at the end of the event where the president was announcing a drug theory -- drug-free community grant. president: john mcgann is a really good guy, has been with me for a very long time. he is been hero must two years. i have a lot of affection for john. he will be moving on to probably the private sector and he will do very well. he is done an excellent job. you concerned about

what he said to mueller about you? president: never. reporter: you are aware of what he said? president trump: we do everything straight, we do everything by the book. john is an excellent guide. reporter: the trade talks, how are they going? goingent trump: they're well. candidate was here until late in the evening, they wanted to meet us. they want to be a part of it. the deal we made was a fantastic deal. the u.s.-mexico trade agreement, we will see whether or not canada gets in to it. reporter: are you optimistic ? president trump: i think so, it will be good for canada if they made the deal. very good

relationship. they can yesterday to the white house and we negotiated late into the evening. we are negotiating with them right now. they want to be a part of the deal. we gave until friday, i think we are probably on track. at any event, things are working out well. outt of things are working well. the european union which has major barriers to trade, you don't know what barriers are, it is not fair for our farmers. those barriers will be coming down. trade in the midst of a dispute to the nicely with china. i think we are doing very well. ,n our time, it has done up there is been a lot of money for people sitting around this table. we picked up about $10 trillion since my election. record business, record stock market, record everything.

also, record unemployment. we are talking about prison reform, and when people come on a prison, they can actually get jobs. they are really liked by a lot of the employers. we have never had this success before. part of the reason is the job market is so good. all of a sudden, employers are hiring people they would not give a chance to. it has worked out incredibly well. i have to tell you, i know employers that have hired people and given people a second and in some cases a third chance. they are so happy, not in all but nothing is in all cases. they are so happy with so many of the people. they said they will be with us for a whole lifetime. such a beautiful thing to see what is happening. again, with canada, i think we

are doing very well. reporter: [indiscernible] i did not hear: that, i have been working on a deal with canada, i had not heard that. i know ron desantis is israordinary, he hard-working, brilliant, ran an incredible campaign. he really beat a lot of people that he was not supposed to beat because he came into the race. he is an extreme talent and he will make a fantastic governor. he is extraordinary in so many different ways. reporter: do you still believe the federal government's

response was appropriate and puerto rico? president trump: i do, the government is an governor is an excellent guide. we have billions and billions of dollars into puerto rico. it was a very tough one. the electric plant was dead before the hurricane, if you look back on the records, it was , theypt, out of business owed tremendous amounts of money. it was closed up, when the hurricane came, people said what are we going to do about electricity? we do a lot of effort into puerto rico. i think most of the people and puerto rico really appreciate what we have done. quickly and the people were incredible. florida field quickly, and everybody worked incredibly hard. perrigo was actually more difficult because it was an island, it was much harder to

get things onto the island. in texas and florida you are land-based. puerto rico was a difficult situation. i only hope they do not hit again. there were hit by two right in a row of the likes we have never seen before. the people of puerto rico are great people, they work very hard. wasto rico i would say it by far the most difficult of the group. right now, fema and all the people that work so hard there, they were buried -- they were very brave. we are straightening out those difficulties now. thank you very much everybody. part of the north korean problem is caused by trade disputes with china, china has been taking out about 500 billion a year from the united states. we cannot let that happen. started working -- i

have a great relationship with china, i have a great relationship with president xi. we have to straighten out our trade relationship because too much money is being lost by us. -- 93% of theoute product and various things that going through china. now that we are in somewhat, i don't like to call it a trade war. our country is doing very well but china is having a very tough time. i think china makes it much more difficult in terms of our relationship with north korea. i could not wait any longer. i have been telling you about china for long time. when i came to office, i purposely did not do much because of wanted to see what we could work out. $400 billionlosing or 500 billion dollars a year and it is going to china and coming away from our taxpayers,

i cannot let that go on. we are being very strong on china. i think it is all going to work out, our country has gone up and they are having a hard time. i think china probably has a great influence over north korea. i have a fantastic relationship you chairman kim as probably know. we'll have to see how it ends up. i have to move with china from the standpoint of trade. it was really not fair to our country. for many years, presidents just close their eyes. i'm not talking about president obama, i'm talking about many presidents. they close their eyes and hundreds of billions of dollars a year were pouring out of the united states. i think we are going to have a very positive impact. reporter: if you look on the

it is the highest in the republican party. peoplent trump: necessarily agree with this, i do nothing for the polls, i do what is right. i'm here for an and very -- i'm here for a very important. of time. we are straining out this country. one of the things we want to strain out is what the people in this room represent. that is drug abuse, alcohol abuse, i think it is something that maybe a lot of people don't talk about. they will talk about other things, to me, this is just as exciting as creating a space force, or sending rockets up. don't, and i can to you this, i don't do anything for polls. i enjoy looking at them, it is interesting to see, i always make the decision based on what is right.

reporter: [inaudible] president trump: there will not be violence. there is a lot of unnecessary violence all over the world, but also in this country. i do not want to see it. would you like the federal government to do about google? i think google, facebook, and twitter, i think they tweet -- i think they treat conservatives very unfair. million, ohr 100 what is the numbers it? >> about 160 million across all platforms. that is a lotp: of people. i could tell you when things are different. all of a sudden you lose people and say where did they go?

i don't know if it happens to the other side, but i can say with respect to google, twitter, and facebook, there is a big difference. in fact, i hear they are holding hearings in congress over the next couple of weeks. i figured is a problem, they are trying to silence a very large part of this country. those people do not want to be silence. is not fair,ht, it it may not be legal. we just want fairness. reporter: do you want to regulate them more? president trump: we are just going to see. we want fairness. if we have fairness, we are all very happy. you're talking about a whoendous number of people want to see fairness. thank you all very much.

i spoke to him yesterday, we had a very good talk. reporter: do you feel that before the end of the week you can bring canada into the agreement? president trump: he called me, i did not call him. he was very nice, could not have been nicer. we will see what happens. i love canada. i love mexico too. [laughter] i am here with sadness to say judge kavanaugh, you do not belong in this building as a justice. >> beyond the extraordinary career and extraordinary intellect and extraordinary record of this judge, you find a character and a humility combined with strength. this left me just profoundly

impressed. that 35 month rate of time where brett kavanaugh served as staff secretary to president bush was a. of time that was rife with issues of a great constitutional moment. people have a right to know what he said. how he advised the president. what he wrote. those are things of which the republicans are hiding from the american people. let's not waste any more time. i know it is evidence that even the most committed -- the most committed providence that supremelyvanagh is qualified for the supreme court. stop playing politics and support us in joining his confirmation. senateh day one of the confirmation hearing for supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh. live, tuesday, september 4 on the c-span3. watch anytime on c-span.org, or listen